As Bejamel wrote, he thought with part of his mind of the many minor revolts that had occurred when the amnesiac treatment failed because of the defense against the drug that human metabolism built periodically, but nothing like this had ever happened in the annals of the Empire. Plastic Inc., as the Inner Circle taught the people to believe, was part of them, and they rose and fell together. It occurred to Bejamel that he was very old, it was indecent to thrust such a crisis on his fading intellect. The thought made his smile acidly. There was nothing decadent about that Machiavellian mind that enabled him to remain in power through decades of intrigues, pitfalls and traps, and lately, the growing enmity of his Benevolence because he would not allow Perlac to become a chattel of his Obese Effulgence in the Temple of the Sacred Flame.
He wondered if he would be able to weather this crisis. Still he wrote swiftly, invisibly on the transparent plastic, and as he did so, the thought of Venus, great in its first bloom of advanced civilization, of Europa, transmuted into an Eden by the courage of its Terrans and the strange unearthly science of the Panadurs. If all else failed, he could seek sanctuary on either one of these two planets. Mars repelled him, none of that grim land for his weary bones. But if he had to flee, he meant to flee along with Perlac, and he had a score to settle before he went.
When he had finished, he pressed a button, and a robot-proctor entered noiselessly, received instruction and as quietly disappeared. Bejamel knew that his robot would deliver the message in person, nothing could take that plastic message from him short of destruction.
V
"Tonight we attack!" Guerlan persisted uncompromisingly, but his eyes sought Perlac's and found confirmation in her swift smile. "I offer the counsel of daring—all or nothing!" A roar of approval greeted his words, the echoes dwindling down the series of subterranean caverns that formed a continental link in the bowels of Neptune and was used to shelter the army of scientists, technicians, analysts, coordinators, mechanics and workmen. They were now under Columbia's Fifth Level, and rising to the crysto-plast dome, each tier was now under the domination of the Irreconcilables.
But Paulan, the Commander in Chief, arose in all the dignity of his great age. He frowned in disapproval, sighing before he spoke.
"I fear too great an army has been assembled against us, Plastica, Telluria, Perdura, the eleven remaining cities will have to be conquered, and remember, since we captured Columbia with comparative ease while the Inner Circle's Army was engaged in destroying the caverns beneath Plastica, all the other cities swarm with Intermediates and the Scientists of the First and Second Circle, not to speak of those fiends of the Inner Circle themselves. We have converted millions through the use of the Ethero-Magnum, thanks to our loyal Perlac, who taught us to use it as the Inner Circle used it to condition the amnesiacs; we have paralyzed the Plastic Industry; destroyed the machinery for processing Bagazo into the amnesiac drug, and we control all the stores of Bagazo. We have achieved the arming of thousands of our followers. Surely, that is a great victory. I feel that should be enough for the present; besides, the Inner Circle will want to come to terms with us."
And it was true. Hunger and privation stalked the tiers of the great cities; chaos reigned. Even the great Plastic centers now had become a shambles of exploding acid vats; conveyors bore a welter of half-asphyxiated humanity, gaunt with hunger and the spasms lack of the amnesiac brought on; transportation was paralyzed, and everywhere the amnesiacs flared into madness as the effects of the drug wore off; and in a frenzy of remembrance and need of the drug, they attacked all in the ranks of scientists, destroying everything they could lay hands on. Thousands died under the trained precision of the Intermediates, and Scientists of the First Order, but the casualties they inflicted in the serried ranks of the Chief Protector were appalling.
"A compromise is not enough!" Guerlan was pitiless. "We have but one Ether Magnum here in Columbia with which to carry our message to the Second Level of each city and the workmen of the Third Level. True we have close to a quarter of a million warriors, but in a war of attrition, they have the greater resources. Besides," his voice was acid with scorn, "who wants a compromise? Not I!" His great green eyes under the long dark lashes flashed fire and the generous, square-cut mouth was bitter. He pointed an accusing finger at the legion of men and women that filled to overflowing the immense central cavern.